Set shot shooting performance and visual acuity in basketball

Common sense suggests that decreasing visual acuity will have a negative effect on basketball shooting performance. To test the hypothesis that basketball shooting performance monotonically decreases with decreasing acuity, 19 subjects attempted 25 set shots from a fixed location at each of 5 different acuity levels: 6/6 or better and vision blurred (by optical defocus) to visual acuities of 6/12, 6/24, 6/48, and 6/75. Our results revealed a small but statistically nonsignificant decrease in shooting performance between the 6/6+ and 6/12 conditions. For visual acuities between 6/12 and 6/75, the number of baskets made remained constant. We conclude that decreases in visual acuity over the range of 6/6+ to 6/75 resulting from defocus do not significantly reduce set shot shooting performance.